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We should have little sympathy for them, but ill thought out war will do nothing to improve things for those citizens. Far more likely the opposite.
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This seems to be a fairly well thought out war that's already killed many Iranian leaders, including:

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Supreme Leader

Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi – Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces

Major General Mohammad Pakpour – Commander-in-Chief of the IRGC

Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh – Minister of Defense

Mohammad Shirazi – Head of Supreme Leader’s military office

Ali Larijani – Senior national security chief

Esmaeil Khatib – Minister of Intelligence

Gholamreza Rezaian – Iranian police intelligence commander

Gholamreza Soleimani – Basij paramilitary commander

Saleh Asadi – Head of military intelligence at Khatam‑al Anbiya

Has there been any other war in which one side so quickly killed the leadership of the other side?

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> tens of thousands of their own citizens

Any credible source for this?

1. Western media is not credible because West treats Iran as enemy

2. Iranian media is not credible because they obviously want to hide facts when they're negative

Now my question is, why are you spreading unverifiable information as something credible and building your facts on top of it?

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> Any credible source for this?

For tens of thousands? No. That’s the upper end of estimates. For the brutality? Yes. Wikipedia is a good start.

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Then you can also fairly say they've killed billions of people - that's the upper end of estimates, could be 1, could be 10, but upper estimate is definitely billions.

Also, please read what I wrote, I meant there is no credible source in this scenario, hence no one should be able to cite anyone's numbers

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> Then you can also fairly say they've killed billions of people

No, you can’t. One, it exceeds Iran’s population. Two, no known method of estimation produces a reasonable guess at those levels.

> there is no credible source in this scenario

There are. There aren’t if you assume ex ante they don’t exist, or if you’re committed to ignoring them.

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> Iran has executed three men accused of killing police officers during anti-government protests in January,

As I said, West considers Iran as enemy, used words by BBC reflects this clearly.

1. "accused of" - we don't know, but lets say they're "accusing" them

2. if true, then they have killed the "police officers" (seems many?) so what do you expect from Iran?

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Thousands, not tens of thousands. Which is bad enough so it seems silly to lie about this but whoever can make up the biggest number seems to favored by the Western narrative.

And let us not act like the decades of sanction were not designed to do exactly this. Sanctions mean you create as much hardships as possible for the people in hope they topple their government. They nearly never work but here we are.

> Contrary to popular belief, economic sanctions are ineffective in fulfilling their objectives. Historical observations from Russia to Cuba and Iran reveal that the more sanctions are designed to pressure the ruling class, the harder ordinary citizens are hit. Leaders often perceive sanctions as a means to enhance nationalism, portraying the United States and its allies as hostile. In many instances, such actions have only strengthened their hold on power while stifling dissent internally.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yljdgwppzo

As for the protests, the truth is also that these were not peaceful protests. Mossads agents had been arming people and instructing them to riot. Hundreds of police offers have been murdered and mosques have been burned down. Mossad agents have been instructed to fire at protestors to increase the death toll.

Yes, there has been valid criticism and unhappiness with the government. But most of these people had been protesting for economic reasons. They didn't want to see their country invaded.

Today many of the people that had protested in January are joining the mass demonstrations in favor of the Islamic Republic. The war has united the Iranians.

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>Mossad agents have been instructed to fire at protestors to increase the death toll.

Source?

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> Hundreds of people died when security forces sought to crush the demonstrations, along with dozens of members of the police and Basij militia. Iranian intelligence operatives internally concluded that some of the violence was being encouraged and facilitated by Israeli operatives, according to the sources. “Foreign actors linked to Israeli intelligence services had, over time, established contact—through various social media platforms and under diverse cover identities—with a significant number of Iranian citizens, particularly young people,” the Iranian intelligence official alleged. These Israeli handlers, he said, “encouraged and incentivized the performance of specific tasks through a combination of financial and non-financial rewards, as well as the provision of material support, including small arms and other equipment.”

> “Foreign actors are arming the protesters in Iran with live firearms, which is the reason for the hundreds of regime personnel killed,” wrote Tamir Morag, the diplomatic correspondent for Israel’s Channel 14, during the uprising. “Everyone is free to guess who is behind it.” Morag and his network are well known for their close ties to Netanyahu.

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/iran-ministry-of-intelligence...

You also find the some information in a Israeli Newspaper:

> On December 29, what is dubbed the Mossad X/Twitter account in Farsi encouraged Iranians to protest against the Iranian regime, telling them that it is literally physically with them at the demonstrations.

> “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote. “We are with you,” it added. “Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.” [...]

> Foreign actors had armed Iranians to help them fight against the regime’s forces being used to crack down on and oppress protesters, Channel 14’s Tamir Morag reported Tuesday. Iran’s foreign minister retweeted the report for his own agenda.

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-883524

See also interview with Prof. Marandi

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-tcwcon30M

He claims the a nurse was burned alive in a clinic by rioters.

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In a war where Israel and US are literally bombing the hell out of Iran, fewer people have been killed than those two days of massacre.

All according to the numbers confirmed by Iranian government.

God, the moral depravity of defending the IRGC and islamic regime is mind boggling. You can still be against Mossad and what they do in Iran while holding the islamic regime accountable for its own atrocities.

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> fewer people have been killed than those two days of massacre.

So, how many have been killed in those two days of massacre exactly?

A credible source please, and "killed", not "accused of killing", "allegedly killed" etc.

I was following this news in real-time at that time. One thing I noticed was that media outlets started killing/withdrawing many of their stories.

That made mighty suspicious.

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Those are not sources for the statement you were asked to back up with a source.
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The state TV. It’s impossible they lie.
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"Mossads agents had been arming people and instructing them to riot. "

This feels far too much like Iranian government propaganda to be plausible.

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That would be right from the text book of any psyops and insurgency operation. This is as standard operating procedure as it gets.

It would be very surprising if they didn't. Heck FBI was doing it to citizens at one point, during war against terror.

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There is a name for that, "Israel Derangement Syndrome". No matter what bad thing happens, it is Israel's fault or doing (even if it happens to Israel itself).
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There is zero proof that Iranian government has killed thousands of their own citizens. Please stop spouting Zionist propaganda
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I really is ridiculous, and somehow the number only gets bigger as the stories are told! Last I saw was "40,000 protestors murdered in just 24 hours!", or something very close to it.

The US and Israel have been carpet bombing Iran for weeks now, blowing up hospitals, schools, power plants and residential buildings, yet the Iranian death toll is "only" around 1,500 so far. Yet we are to believe that Iran killed 40k of its own people in a day - you would literally be able to see piles of corpses from space!

Israel has also claimed that they've hacked every traffic camera in Tehran, yet are mysteriously unable to provide any actual evidence of the supposed massacre - meanwhile, Iran released several videos showing foreign agitators distributing weapons, people attacking civilians etc.

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I think there are 5-7 thousand confirmed deaths by the UN, and medical reports in Iran estimated there could be 20,000+ casualties.
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7 thousand confirmed death, 9 thousand unconfirmed death. Among that 1200 confirmed death from the regime forces, and 400 to be confirmed bystanders. The nurse burned to death by protesters is among those 400.
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I don't know enough to dispute, but could you link such a report
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> The US and Israel have been carpet bombing Iran

No they haven't. The US started phasing out carpet bombing[0] half a century ago. You discredit yourself by making such trivially falsifiable assertions.

The US and Israel use precision strikes. It is why the ratio of targets per sortie is by far the highest ever recorded in a major conflict.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpet_bombing

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While I somewhat agree, you should also look at the results of those precision strikes. Usually, when they kill a senior Iranian officer sleeping in his appartment, they level the building or at lest blow up several adjacent units, probably killing at last 10 innocent people.
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That's an inherent limitation of precision strikes. The objective is minimizing the collateral damage required to achieve the objective, not avoiding it entirely. Even the various explosive-free precision-guided munitions the US uses have a non-zero damage radius.

One can argue whether or not it is a good idea for the bombs to be flying around in the first place, but there is no version of physics that allows anyone to avoid collateral damage as a practical matter.

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Which is not “carpet bombing”.

Use words and phrases correctly, or expect an argument.

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Look at the videos coming out of Iran - civilian infrastructure and residences are clearly being targeted. Some unexploded bombs have been found that lack a JDAM guidance package.

And regardless of the USA, Israel is most certainly not above carpet bombing civilians.

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Again, that's not "carpet bombing". Carpet bombing requires a type of aircraft that Israel doesn't have (though the US does).

Why would you expect a precision bomb to have a JDAM package? That is not the only type of guidance package. In fact, most of the footage I've seen (largely Israeli) has clearly been laser-guided bombs. They aren't the same thing, and the latter is more precise than JDAM in any case.

Use of precision-guided bombs in a city is not "carpet bombing".

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Even if their actions might not precisely meet some dictionary definition of "carpet bombing", you know well what I meant - civilians and civilian infrastructure are being deliberately targeted with complete disregard for loss of life and environmental consequences.
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You meant to lie, and you did lie, and you continue to lie. Standard TikTok rage where words no longer have meaning, reality must be rejected, and any headline is true even if the article directly negates it or there's no source, so long as it makes Israel look bad.

I swear, it's almost as if the anti-Israel mob _wants_ it to be true.

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That’s called war.

You’re parroting IRGC propaganda, which is why people are arguing with you.

“We are innocent civilians and the Israelis are carpet bombing us”… said by the people that funded October 7th and killed more of their own people than the Israeli bombs did.

Iran’s government has been violently belligerent for decades, and continues to this day to bomb its Arab neighbours including hitting their civilians! They don’t get to whine about the morality of civilian versus military deaths.

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You are vilifying an entire country and it's high time we acknowledge this is wrong. Israel does not set out to carpet bomb civilians. If it did, the numbers would have been insane; same goes for the US.
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Be serious, look at what has been done to Gaza. Israel absolutely sets out to murder civilians, en-masse.
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Can you show me a verified case where IDF intentionally targeted civilians fully knowing they were going to "murder" them for no reason?
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All the children shot in the head as reported by western doctors working there?
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Gaza was not carpet bombed at all. Gaza was bombed with precision weapons, then bulldozers came in and leveled empty buildings after calling their residents to evacuate. You may not like it, but Israel never used a strategy of carpet bombings, it's neither effective nor efficient.
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Holy shit what rock are you living under? Israel is villifying itself just fine.
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I argue that anyone saying this is watching too many TikTok videos and not really familiar with what's going on.

Without going into too much detail, my position and line of work means that I have to keep very informed on the middle east and so far I've seen a lot of hatred, and very little factual basis. In fact every single person I personally talked to was very uninformed on these matters which is fine, as long as you accept it and don't form extreme opinions on entire countries.

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I consume no TikTok, no Facebook, no cable news, none of any of that.

If Israel doesn't want people to form "extreme opinions" about them then maybe they should stop oppressing and murdering poeple with a compete disregard for human life.

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I'd appreciate if you didn't spam the same link all over my comments, once is enough. And as for "forensic architecture", please visit their website and go over who these people are - especially the Palestinians from Ramallah and self proclaimed "activists". This is by no means an unbiased organization.
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Then don't go asking for a report in all of your comments on this page where you have, once is enough.

Forensic Architecture is one of the most reputed organizations for this line of work.

Their reports are read with great deal of respect here on HN and they cover more than this conflict. If they don't count as credible and competent, nothing will satisfy. The moral equivalent of covering one's eyes and ears.

So I will appreciate if you stop this sham of yours asking for a citation.

While you are at it, do better than ad hominem.

For HN audience, the report was discussed on HN here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136179

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>For HN audience, the report was discussed on HN here

He's in there as well, truly unapologetic Zionist.

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Ah! Now I feel like an idiot wasting my time. Thanks for the heads up though.

Sadly, my country does this too, pay shills to promote their party line on Whatsapp.

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Please stop spouting Hamas Health Ministry propaganda.
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The Iranian government is bad, and yes, it should be toppled, eventually, by its own people.

This doesn't change the fact that Iran is the aggressed party in an invasion of an incredibly aggressive US-Israel axis that seem to revel in death.

You can hate the Iranian murderous regime, and also understand that it is fighting against another evil, murderous regime.

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> The Iranian government is bad, and yes, it should be toppled, eventually, by its own people.

You would prefer to tell people in Iran who oppose the regime to take up arms (which they don't have) and fight IRGC soldiers with better training and more resources?

Best case, if they did, Iran would end up in a situation like Syria. Would that be an improvement?

More likely, it would simply be a massacre.

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What I can tell you is that no matter how much I hate the government of my country, I would hate a lot more the foreign country that is destroying civilian infrastructure and murdering my people.

Let's not pretend that the US and Israel regimes have the best interest of the Iranian people in mind. They want murder.

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I really can't say how this is being received in or out of Iran, but I remember after the initial strikes there was widespread footage of Iranian exiles celebrating, even on anti-Trump media.

Edit: and even people celebrating in Iran itself, which seems incredibly brave.

"videos posted on social media showed joy and defiance elsewhere, with people cheering as a statue was toppled in the city of Dehloran in Ilam province, dancing in the streets of Karaj city, near Tehran in Alborz province, and celebrating in the streets of Izeh in Khuzestan province. In the town of Galleh Dar in southern Iran, people knocked down a monument commemorating Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic Republic in 1979, a video on social media showed."

https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/polarised-ira...

Even The Guardian, as anti-Trump as a source can be, reported that "videos shared widely on social media also showed people celebrating, dancing, honking car horns and setting off fireworks as news of the leader’s death broke."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/01/celebration-or...

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I bet that in Russia they also have media showing that people in Uraike are celebrating their liberation, etc.

I am very skeptical of war propaganda. You would do well to be skeptical of it too.

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Yeah, but then again the United States has also killed protestors with federal invasions of its cities. As well as slaughtered children with a targeted missle strike on a school.
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There are only two countries capable of killing civilians by the ten thousands and the world knows them. In fact they're currently bombing Iran and the region, one of them is currently perpetrating a genocide with approval of the day called civilized world. No cameras or international press covering the massacre of Gaza.
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This is just completely false. There are multiple countries capable of killing their own by those numbers. All of them are equally disgusting, and should all be held accountable.
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